S5 Ep 3 | From Ecuador to the world: Coca-Cola's EU CMO Journey That’s Redefining Global Marketing.

26:15Javier Meza:I'm introvert to start with. So I'm looking inside me a lot, my feelings. But I've been in many situations in which I was like, okay, I'm going to lose control here. And I said, hey, Tim, let's take a five minutes break. I need a bio break. Boom. Camera off just to breathe and recenter. Because I monitor my feelings. and I say, okay, I'm getting impatient here. I'm going to explode. Explode. And that's not going to be nice. So I take a break. I do a lot of this, breathe before going into the meeting. I do a lot of, you know, the famous pre-reads for the meeting tomorrow. Yes. So a lot of people say, oh, here's the pre-read.

26:52Javier Meza:And you go and read, okay, I'm going to be ready with the content. But I also think, how do I want to show up in that meeting? What's going to be my role as leader? Am I going to be inspirational, raise the bar, or going to be more like, hey, let's go get this done, like a warrior, go, go, go, or going to be the skeptical that ask questions to check if the team has really. So I decide, depending on the topic, what is the leadership role I want to play? But that requires managing yourself. It requires a lot of managing yourself. The second part is this idea of leading people, the second dimension.

27:26Javier Meza:And leading people, my belief is, there's no way you can lead people, especially the ones that are closer to you. Because we are leader of leaders at the end of the day. Yeah, 100%. When I have to start is always, let me get to know the person. And I try to have this one-on-one. The first conversation when I arrive to Europe, first call with my one-on-one, with my direct reports, five questions I ask them. Systematically. What are the five questions? Systematically. And it works a lot. The first question is, who are you? So it would be, who is Mayra? And then sometimes people say, oh, I am the marketing man.

28:02Javier Meza:No, no, no, no. Who are you? That's your job. Who are you? And that's an amazing question to ask as well. Because when people realize that you are really interested in knowing the person. It changes everything. It changes everything. The eyes shine. You can see that. People, you know, they illuminate. They're like, oh, let me tell you who I am. It's amazing. The second question is then the experience and the studies. Okay, what did you study? What have you done? Tell me a little bit about your career. What have you done? the third one and this was also learning from me used to be what's your ambition professionally and i was doing this conversation years ago with the brazilian michelle gomberg and he looked at me and said hey we are not like you not everyone is like you move by ambition i am moved by dreams and i was like wow wow tell me more michelle and then he explained to me his definition so now i ask those two questions what are your dreams or what are your ambitions Ambition things is a very good comment because what I've been learning throughout the years of, you know, being a leader as well is that everyone's objective and ambitions at work, it's so different.

29:17because there are people that are ambitious because they are driven. They really wanted to grow. The titles are very important. And there are some that they really want to have a stable job from 9 to 6. And that's how they see work life. That doesn't mean because they only want to be there for 9 to 6. That doesn't mean they're not being effective. And that doesn't mean that they don't have dreams and ambitions. they're all it's just and that's the beauty when you start you know understanding yeah who you are and what is your dreams because it's different and you have to work psychology because you cannot make someone that is effective at their job they're very good what they are but they are not driven they are kind of they are happy where they are you cannot push the boundaries that pass because already understood what is that person ambition and then and understanding that without being judgmental, but also be a good leader and support that, it's, I think, is the beauty of leadership.

30:20Javier Meza:Because at the end of the day, as I said before, I don't need to be right or wrong. And it's just been effective. And in this case, helping people. I find fulfillment in helping people progress. So the fourth question is, what are you good at? What are you good at? The first, you remember the skills. And the reason I ask these questions is because many times people have not, young people probably have not reflected yet. What are they good at? And sometimes people say, oh, I know how to do activations because I did the FIFA World Cup activation in Brazil. That's experience. It's important, but it's not the question.

30:57Javier Meza:The answer. Oh, I know how to do excels. That's knowledge. It's not a question. What are you good at? And this is a very important question to ask people because you empower them to think and reflect. And the reason I ask this question is because I really believe that you will only shine professionally when you use your skills. I use this analogy, Messi and Tiger Woods, rock stars in their fields. Imagine you say, we will swap them. Okay, Messi, you're going to play golf. But I don't know how to play golf. We will teach you. We will put the professor, so we will give you knowledge. Okay, but I don't have experience.

31:36Javier Meza:Don't worry. You're going to put you in the next 12 golf tournaments, so you have a lot of experience. Well, I'm not motivated. We will pay you a lot of money so you are motivated for 12 months. And maybe he's still going to be just fine because the talent, the skills are not there. So when you try to put people to shine using skills they don't have, it's just fine. So understanding what are you good at is so important so you can offer people the type of experiences and jobs that are going to make them shine. And the last question is, how can I help you? How can I help you at a personal level?

32:13I love that. So that's leading people. It's leading people. So these are the first, the five questions that you always ask.

32:19Javier Meza:Yeah, because if not, there is no easy to lead people, right? I think it's the most challenging thing. The other thing that answers your question is authenticity matters when leading people. Yes. When they see that you are not saying one thing and doing another. Authenticity also doesn't mean that you need to say everything you think. Yes. But it is that whatever you say, you need to mean it. But it's difficult sometimes not to say everything that you think. And then this goes back to your self-awareness. Yes. And also understanding that as a leader, you know, I really believe in this. The more senior I became, the less spontaneous I can be.

32:55Javier Meza:So I need to be thoughtful. I'm learning that. I need to be thoughtful of the impact of the things I do. Yeah. But it's a self-awareness because you are someone that you're saying that you're introvert, but you're very spontaneous. I'm a very spontaneous person. I'm a very... And sometimes I go like, but as more you grow, it's just like there needs to be put boundaries on how spontaneous you can be. But it goes back to the self-awareness. And because of that, one of the things I do a lot is check the gap between intent and impact. As a leader, you might have an intent, but the impact could be different.

33:32Javier Meza:So check that gap is important. Sometimes I'm very explicit. like I'm in meetings and people presenting ideas, projects to me. And if I want to make a comment, I am super explicit. This is just a comment. It's not a decision. Okay, so you say that. To make sure that the intent and impact are the same. It's the same. Because there's a risk always, right? Oh, I don't like this. And then people go and change it. No, no, you don't need to change anything. I just said that I don't like it. It doesn't mean that you need to change it. Exactly. So differentiate point of views from decisions. differentiate when you are, when you didn't like something or just provoking.

34:08Javier Meza:So I use a lot that, hey, I'm going to make a comment that may sound mean, but it's not the intent. I'm just provoking to elevate this conversation. To elevate this conversation. So I do that a lot. Very good. And then the last dimension of leadership is business leadership. And in business leadership, my thinking is clarity on the destination and strategy, a lot of flexibility, in the path and plans. Yes. Be willing to challenge the plans, change the plans if needed, which for me is easy, right? Based on my profiles, I am flexible. So for me, changing plans is super easy. It's super easy, but the clarity...

34:46Javier Meza:But you need to understand that some people suffer when you change the plan. Some people need a structure. They need, right? They need a plan. Yeah, so you need to... To play around. But yeah, I am always pushing for, okay, why are we doing this? What's the ultimate objective? And then the how, super flexible. super flexible we can be flexible and fed out so leading yourself leading people leading the business it's a big challenge but it's exciting at the same time because you're doing that you grow yourself as well right so you're just creating that self-awareness and then and then looking it's forced you to look at you as well because it's not just about the people but it's about is about you but tell me about coca-cola now so all of the story which is amazingly the someone that's pushed boundaries, that takes risks, that is always curious, always learning, always willing to learn.

35:39So how do you apply all of that knowledge and experience to continue to evolve with Coca-Cola marketing, especially now with so much innovation and technology? Because it's a fast-paced environments right now?

35:57Javier Meza:It is. Two, three ideas. First one is we are very much globally connected as a network, right? So I work a lot with my peers from all of the world, my global CMO, Manolo. And we have an agenda, transformation agenda on the marketing, which is basically, we started already a couple of years ago and we're making good progress, but basically we move into an experience-based marketing model. So it's all about creating and co-creating experiences with consumers. And that starts with the packaging product experiences, QR codes that lands into digital experiences that also land into retail point of sale experiences.

36:37Javier Meza:And we connect that also with live experiences, can be a music festivals, can be FIFA World Cup, can be Premier League that we will be sponsoring now in Europe. Well, globally, but it starts in GB. So we have this model of experience-based marketing first. and it's been a journey because when we started designing this way of working we had clarity on the destination but we didn't know how to get there and we have been learning and adjusting part of that is the partnership we have with WPP so we created both for creativity and for consumer engagement tools together with them to be able to scale all these ideas because everything I said before about experiences has to be done in a scale that is unique Because of course I can do a super nice event for 100 people in London this Friday.

37:28Javier Meza:That's not going to move the needle. No, for a brand like Coca-Cola, it has to have impact. It has to have in scale. And my job basically is clarity on the transformation, helping the team to focus on what are the three, four things, capabilities we need to build together so we can have a repeatable model that is scalable. because again doing one thing well done once is not that difficult it's not that difficult doing that across brands across markets every day and keep it consistent and keep it consistent that's important I place as a little bit of visionary this is what we are trying to do okay a little bit of the word that's focusing things and put resources making sure that okay forget that that's not important we can do that in three years not now helping with that but also So I play a little bit of the person that protects small ideas and do some, you know, protect experimentation because before we can scale, we need to check.

38:27You need to change. So you like to test and learn.

38:30Javier Meza:We do that a lot. Okay. In a small scale. This is pretty important. And then say, we think this works. Okay, now repeat it. I don't do a lot of marketing these days. I don't, sadly so. But I have a lot of people. But you have a lot of people that does. A lot of people doing marketing. And then like creative. Like you talk about being like to scale, right? Which for Coca-Cola, it's a must because, as I said, there's a one-off, doesn't move a needle for you guys. But is AI now, it's one of the tools that is going to, or is already supporting Coca-Cola for that scale, especially when it comes to creating content?

39:08Javier Meza:Yeah, it's already there. But it's already there, but we are learning and developing capabilities. And I would say it's three dimensions in which we're using. The first one is that one, using AI to create better experiences. We had, for example, in Christmas, this idea of you can scan a QR code in any Coca-Cola package, and you landed in a site talking to Santa. That's incredible. And you had a conversation with Santa, and Santa would ask you questions, you answer. And based on that conversation, Santa would create a snow globe that was personalized. It was my snow globe from my conversation. And then we could put that or send to friends.

39:45Javier Meza:So this is the type of AI-enabled experiences, and you name it. We are bringing more and more of that. For EPL, we will have one of them for FIFA World Cup. So we are doing that consumer experience enabled by AI. The second dimension is, I would say, is more efficiency in the core of what we do. And what is the core of what we do? Understanding consumers. So we are using AI for insight generation, and also AI agents to make it faster to harness insights. Insights. Yeah. The second thing we do is develop and create ideas. And this, of course, is still open to debate, but I really believe that the model is going to be HI plus AI, so human ingenuity and artificial intelligence.

40:38Javier Meza:I still believe that you need humans to understand humans. and one of the ideas I've been sharing internally is two ideas I would like to share. One is, yeah, data is important but data without creativity will not differentiate your brand. And the second thing I like to say is I have no doubt AI is changing and disrupting how we do things but I also am convinced that AI will not change why we do things. I love that. The why we do things which is about not understanding humans and then seducing humans with ideas. So the second dimension is this. It's more efficiency. And for example, we took a couple of ads.

41:19Javier Meza:Now holidays are coming. It was an existing piece of creativity. We just reproduced that. We created, we updated the content using AI. It was super efficient. Less time, lower cost. Lower cost. But from an existing insight and idea. I love that. So we didn't replace the creativity process. we updated and improved the production process more efficiently. More efficient. That's what the AI would do, right? And the third part is the supporting function. So we have now, we work with Microsoft, we have co-pilot in all our systems. We take meetings that are one hour long. It's like, give me the five things I need to know about these meetings.

41:59Javier Meza:I get decks from sometimes 50 slides. It's like, give me two pages. Making more efficient that is also part of that. It's also part of that. And I agree with you. I think the human connection, we're always going to be here because more and more we're craving that connection. So that's why like example here, like there's one of the recent podcasts nowadays is so important because that's the connection. The person that is listening at home, they can feel that there is a human connection. The technology is actually enabling the people to actually hear a conversation. so I think it's like the human and AI it has to be a combo because one is not going to replace the other it's how you smartly use both knowing that the humanity is never going to go away because it's may I tell you a personal story my youngest daughter she was born with a heart congenital failure and she went to open heart surgery when she was two weeks old she's 20 now so amazing god bless god bless but with two weeks she went into a 12 hours open heart surgery that they removed the heart two years old two weeks two weeks old wow yeah and i remember talking to the surgeon that was going to do that and i was thinking you know what yeah maybe a robot could do that today but i i want a human being there with a robot you know there is something in my mind maybe i'm still old school but i still feel that humanity plays a huge role yeah today you do have robots the robots that does the surgery but they don't do the surgery alone so you still have even with you know the technology supporting the medicine because of technology is just supporting any type of not just marketing is everything but it's you a robot cannot do the surgery without having the doctor and actually robots to kind of manage and and and guide the robot to do this every right and the other thing is whenever someone tells me oh but that's too difficult i said i remember that surgery and there's like it's not yeah you don't know what's difficult it starts with us even to create the technology to create the ai was a human that created that so it's a it's always a start with us yes in regardless of how advanced is the technology we have created as human yeah and that takes me to the philosophy part of this which is and ends with us because at the end of the day what we do cannot put smile in someone's face it cannot solve some human problem it doesn't matter right whatever we do at the end of the day we are humans trying to make humans either happier or progress in life?

44:50Javier Meza:You know, this is an interesting question. When I think about humankind and I say, what has been humankind? It's always about this. We are pursuing happiness. Pursuing happiness. But also progress, right? Progress, like... We want to evolve. And I think as we get older, I feel like we crave more progress, but not just career progress, but it's just like emotional intelligence, meaning, purpose. Yes. Because you're getting older, so you don't know when is your last day. So you want to make the most of it and getting that sense that you're evolving as a human. And then I love what you said, ending with us.

45:34Because I know that one of your dreams is to write a book. I'm not saying that the book is going to be the end of you, but your book is something that is going to be telling your stories and it's going to be like and with us it's making a lot of sense for that you know like talking about philosophy and I know you love that connection philosophy and human and marketing and I think to have a book to combine all your knowledge and experience and making people smile because you are such a smiling and warming person and I think we need to have that book Tell just a little bit about like that dream of, you know, I know you love teaching.

46:17I know you love that lecture is something that you're very passionate about it. And then your book and future of Coca-Cola as a company is just like for 20 years.

46:31Javier Meza:I think it's going to be much more than that. Very interesting because I was going to tell you something that when it comes to philosophy, I feel that sometimes, and that connects with this managing the ego. Yeah. Sometimes we live assuming that we will not die ever, right? But we will. But we will. And sometimes I put that in my head and say, you know what? In a couple of years, I'm going to be dead. And then in a couple of years after that, all the people that know me are going to be dead. It's true. It's not just me. It's everyone. My mom is in that phase where she's losing a lot of friends.

47:04and then she keeps saying it's crazy that I had phases where my friends were getting like boyfriends and girlfriends and it's like getting married and then they have started kids kids and then we all get older and now she said now I feel like I'm in a phase that I'm losing all my friends and she said it's it's not easy of course not to think that it you can be and that that puts me back balance in

47:28Javier Meza:my life, right? I said, don't take things too seriously, take people seriously, but not situations. And don't take yourself too seriously. And my, my idea is if I can help, especially younger people with a little bit of experience and then some ideas, I'll try to do that. So that's why philosophy is so important for me. It's this idea of making sense of some things in life. Uh, because, you But of course, it's the way life goes. But I wish I had the experience and wisdom I have today when I was 20 years old. But of course, it's impossible because it's a consequence. But then I feel, okay, if I can give back a little bit of that, put in some sense of the things we do.

48:13Javier Meza:Because honestly, sometimes I think we get so focused on, oh, we need to deliver the P &L. We need to deliver the campaign. We need to win. How many lions are going to win in Cannes? Yes. You say it's beyond that. Marketing is beyond that. That's why I so love the Beyond Marketing. It's beyond marketing, but it's not everyone that has that knowledge that is beyond marketing. And then I think people like you, it needed to keep talking about it because potentially we can get more people to understand that is beyond marketing at the end of the day. that marketing is just a tool. So I'm taking some classes now with a philosopher in Argentina.

48:59Javier Meza:I love that. Philosophy classes and writing classes. Always curious. Always push the boundaries. I do that. I have a couple of dreams still. So this is one, the book. And I want to own a bookstore. Like for me, I went Saturday to a bookstore in Dublin. I promise you, you know when you go to an Italian restaurant and you smell like, well, for me a bookstore is done. I went into the bookstore and I do How many books do you read in a month? No, no, I'm not a big reader I'm still buying books and I keep saying when I stop with Coke I'm going to read all these books but I read some books and I read paper books I love the filling, the page and I try to read a lot I love history as well so I love reading history books or even history romances like Brazilian and all this, you know, the trilogy of 1808, 1895.

49:56Javier Meza:That trilogy was amazing about the Portuguese imperial family. But then I like reading books about philosophy. I'm reading now this El Mundo de Sofia. Ah, El Mundo de Sofia. Yeah, that book about history. I remember about my father. He used to love El Mundo de Sofia. And the thing that happens to me is that some ideas, I come back and read them again. So it's not that I read a book and forget. So I have it in my iPad and front of the phone. Let me go back. What was this idea about this? And then go and read again. I don't read a lot about marketing. I don't. That's why you do goods and marketing, because you don't read about marketing.

50:37Javier Meza:But I read about digital. I try to understand. I've read a couple of good books about analytics. Yeah, because it's the knowledge, right? Because marketing can become something that is more. let's say straightforward in a sense. And I learned a lot of marketing from my colleagues. From your team, yeah. From my team. I mean, influence marketing. I have Pascales in my team. Amazing guy. He's doing everything. Yeah, he can teach me. I mean, literally. I go and say, hey, explain this to me. Blah, blah, blah. Okay, got it. I understand now. So creators, influencers, sport, experience, all of that combined is very important for Coca-Cola company to continue to.

51:13Javier Meza:Yeah, it is. Because at the end of the day, you know our belief is this is we believe in the branding that is we call it the ladder up which is the product experience matters yeah but on top of the product experience there is a brand idea a brand promise and those two things need to be connected connected yeah uh and that has always been the case and i don't think that's going to change that's not the part of the marketing transformation that is changing yes the second thing is we really believe in in marketing of occasions, which is basically we understand that people, they drink our products and brands in specific occasions for certain motivations.

51:50Javier Meza:And we humans have different occasions because I could tell you, hey, I control sugar. I don't want to drink. And in fact, I only drink Coke Zero, no sugar. But then Friday I can have three wines and I don't care how much sugar is there. This is a controversy. Because it's a different occasion with a different motivation. So we believe a lot in understanding that combination of vocations and motivations. And co-motivation, interesting. And we deliver marketing against that. We believe in innovation because consumers move, competitors move. By innovation. So you need to move. We believe a lot in sustainability and the value of sustainability as a brand building experience.

52:28100 % is very important.

52:30Javier Meza:And we use a lot of marketing assets, passion points, Olympics, if I work, EuroCup, English Premier League. We believe that that helps create emotional connection with people. What is really changing is this experience model. So the first two things we've been doing for years, the experience model instead of broadcasting but using data and creativity to invite people to create experiences. It's not the future, it's the present, but it's going to be the big future. Now, the last part we need to do at scale. That's my challenge. I can come up with great ideas but it has to be that scale that's the challenge but I'm sure you're going to solve that yeah and that's why we have partners and we work with we are butlers as well last thing because I think we have to wrap up but this conversation is so good it's been 10 minutes only because we don't like talk we can do another one for more 3 hours how do you deal with judgment?

53:36Javier Meza:Mine or others? Yours.

53:41Javier Meza:Honest answer, I don't judge myself. And what about when people judge you? How do you deal with that? And the reason I don't judge myself, I'll answer the question, is when I was 35 years old, more or less, when I faced this situation with my daughter, that was a very before and after moment for me. And I remember physically looking into the mirror and saying, I understand you now. And that's the moment I accepted myself with the bad and the ugly. And I stopped judging. I forgive myself a lot. I forgive myself a lot. And because of that, I don't judge others. When I feel judgment from the others, to me, I feel uncomfortable.

54:20Javier Meza:But at this point of life, I don't care too much. I care judgment for specific people, my family, of course. But in general, I don't care too much. when I see people judging others especially younger then I really try to stop that and say hey wait wait wait wait I try to do something about that yeah I love that you said that you look at yourself in the mirror and that day on you know I forgive myself a lot yourself and I think that's the beauty of life is just learning how to forgive ourselves because sometimes I feel like the judgment that we do to ourselves can be much more prejudiced than the judgment And then if you judge yourself, you judge others as well.

54:59Exactly. So it's just like constantly learning how to forgive yourself. Javier, you're amazing. When we can have your book?

55:09Javier Meza:Oh, yeah. Coming soon. Coming soon. Okay, guys. Coming soon. Just like, you know, keep watching what he's doing because the book is coming soon. Because I'm sure there's so much more stories that this book will be telling. You're like such an inspirational person with your story. but also such an inspiring, you know, leader and, you know, person that is driving what Coca-Cola Company is doing. Being there for 27 years is a great testament of who you are, right? And your dreams and your ambitions and your pushing boundaries. And if you're there, it's just probably because you're making a huge impact to that company.

55:50And they have very luck to have you.

55:53Javier Meza:And congrats on the podcast. Thank you so much. Very grateful for you to spend your time here because I know your agenda. It's quite busy traveling a lot. So I feel very privileged and very honored to have had this opportunity to talk with you over an hour, I believe. Okay. So thank you so much for everyone that's, you know, that's listening to our podcast today. I hope you have enjoyed as much as I have enjoyed. so he's an amazing inspiring you know person and i'm as i said to javier i'm very grateful that we had the chance to bring him to the beyond marketing the podcast so hope you have enjoyed if you're not following us yet please make sure you do on apple amazon spotify and youtube and i see you guys on our next episode and thank you again for being with us today happy to be here thank you